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Elon Musk calls for “criminal prosecution” of Twitter/X ad boycott perpetrators

After the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary released a report accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding with companies to censor conservative voices online, Elon Musk chimed in. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators” behind an advertiser boycott on his platform.

“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” Musk wrote, leading several X users to suggest that Musk wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X.

Among other allegations, Congress’ report claimed that GARM—which is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), whose members “represent roughly 90 percent of global advertising spend, or almost one trillion dollars annually”—directed advertisers to boycott Twitter shortly after Musk took over the platform.

Twitter/X’s revenue tanked after Musk’s takeover, with Bloomberg reporting last month that X lost almost 40 percent of revenue in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. That’s worse than prior estimates last May, which put Twitter’s loss around one-third of its total valuation. Ars chronicled the worst impacts of the ad boycott, including sharp drop-offs in the US, where an internal Twitter presentation leaked to The New York Times showed Twitter’s ad revenue was down by as much as 59 percent “for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May” in 2023.

Last year, Musk sued other “collaborators” in the X boycott, including hate speech researchers, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Media Matters for America (MMFA). However, his suit against the CCDH was dismissed this March, and Media Matters has claimed that Musk filing his MMFA lawsuit in Texas may be “fatal” because of a jurisdictional defect.

nutsack ,

Man I’m super glad this guy can’t run for president

afraid_of_zombies ,

For now. You know what the Supreme Court will be paid to do.

I can even outline it now. They will argue it violates the civil rights amendment which as it came later means it has higher priority over what came earlier. Then they will find some letter written by a random Founding Father arguing that the law should be written to only apply to members of nobility. There you go an Originalist argument against plain reading.

Nollij ,

When a business blames its customers for choosing to no longer be its customers, it’s a sure sign the business is declining. Depending on the severity, it’s often a sign the business is failing.

This applies here, as well as any time you see an article that millennials are killing <business/industry/etc>. It also applies when an entertainer blames their (potential) audience for not enjoying their work. See Jerry Seinfeld, Kid Rock, etc.

No one owes your business any patronage.

intensely_human ,

Actually if we’re referring to twitter’s customers, Musk changed it so that the customers aren’t the advertisers any more, but the users.

It’s a really good move for the quality of the thing. It realigns twitter’s incentives to those of the users, whereas before twitter was only serving advertisers.

Nollij ,

While I would generally agree with that statement (and gave you an up vote for it), I feel like Musk twisted that away from any normal business move.

For instance, many customers aren’t paying for premium features. Rather, they were extorted into paying, because their professional lives depend on it.

And even after all that, it’s not like it’s catering to users on any level. No one is saying that Twitter is better now. Well, no one except the Russian bots and the Nazis.

twig ,

Lol

Techpriest2 ,
@Techpriest2@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    NikkiDimes ,

    Everyone knows that only counts if you’re brown

    douglasg14b ,
    @douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

    And now you know why he’s donating to the Trump campaign.

    Because with the shift of power with project 2025 he can actually do this.

    RememberTheApollo_ ,

    What’s this? Another petty tyrant king demanding taxes from his serfs? These billionaires are fucked up in the head. They can’t just sit back, killing their livers, getting drunk and wasted on drugs on their yachts. No, they have to bend the world to their will at the expense of everyone else living in it. Even then, that isn’t enough.

    CosmicTurtle0 ,

    Didn’t Musk tell his advertisers to leave the platform if they didn’t like Twitter anymore? Wouldn’t that alone make any tort dead upon filing?

    Yeah it ties up a few billable hours but we’re not exactly talking about companies that can’t afford it.

    bitchkat ,

    Didn’t he tell them to “go fuck yourselves”?

    intensely_human ,

    Yeah, he said something like “You try to blackmail me? With money? Go fuck yourselves”.

    ChronosTriggerWarning ,

    Receipts…

    Say Elonald, why don’t you follow your own advice…?

    Dkarma ,

    Til not buying things is blackmailing companies

    sunzu ,

    Cute of him to think he is as valuable as Israel

    Grimy ,

    What do you mean by this? Elon is shit but he still has more value than a genocidal state running on hate imo.

    sunzu , (edited )

    Israel lobby made it illegal for US companies and government workers to boycott israel.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act

    I think I linked the wrong wiki

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/999

    Here is the law.

    Better wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

    Looks like the criminal part is at the state level with 38 passing such laws.

    Grimy ,

    Ah okay, I figured I was misunderstanding what you meant.

    Grippler ,

    What the actual fuck…

    sunzu ,

    AIPAC lobbied for this shite and got it done...

    Now remember this when your favourite daddy politicians tells you how congress can't accomplish anything due to partisan grid lock ;)

    Grippler ,

    I read a little on the wiki page you linked, and it seems it was in fact not passed.

    The act consisted of House and Senate bills H.R. 1697 and S. 720 and died in Congress

    sunzu , (edited )

    I think I linked the wrong wiki

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/999

    Here is the law.

    Better wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

    Looks like the criminal part is at the state level with 38 passing such laws.

    Agrivar ,

    Another day, another reason to be glad I live in Massachusetts!

    nondescripthandle ,

    Man who claims hes a libertarian wants government to punish those who don’t give him money.

    just_another_person ,

    Oh, nonono. You simply misunderstood him, because he’s such a genius. Didn’t you hear that he thinks he is literally the smartest engineer alive on this planet? Surely he’s not following suit of other nutjobs and simply trying to weaponize the judicial system in his favor because he essentially has unlimited money? This guy?? Nooooo…

    r00ty Admin ,
    r00ty avatar

    He thinks he's a lot of things. In reality, he's just a living, breathing example of Dunning-Kruger in action.

    intensely_human ,

    And his meager accomplishments prove it!

    Empricorn ,

    He’s also now donating to Trump, who I believe absolutely will punish people for Musk, if elected.

    Cocodapuf ,

    To that we say… Go fuck yourself?

    Buffalox ,

    As earth is my witness, I promise I did not do any drugs before coming here.
    Earth will know the truth!
    If we go bankrupt, it’s all those pesky customers running away. Just because we are Nazis. And now they are colluding against Nazism!

    Phegan ,

    But the free market…

    ChronosTriggerWarning ,

    If he doesn’t like being blackmailed he could always just fund Twitter himself.

    Corvidae ,

    I could have sworn I read that Musk was a free speech absolutist. Freedom for me but not for thee?

    That_Devil_Girl ,
    @That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml avatar

    He certainly exercises his free speech to lie about his advocacy for free speech.

    dactylotheca ,
    @dactylotheca@suppo.fi avatar

    This is the case with literally every conservative crowing about “free speech”. They want full freedom for themselves so that no matter what they say there can’t be any negative consequences or reactions, and everybody else can get fucked and die in an extermination camp

    Holzkohlen ,

    and the home of the braaaaaaave!

    dactylotheca ,
    @dactylotheca@suppo.fi avatar

    ^*some^ ^terms^ ^and^ ^conditions^ ^apply,^ ^bravery^ ^not^ ^available^ ^in^ ^most^ ^areas^

    ChronosTriggerWarning ,

    The power of maaaaanyyyyyyyyyy 🤮

    sundray ,

    Musk wants freedom of speech for people. But his definition of “people” is very, very narrow.

    prime_number_314159 ,

    He only believes in the first 22 words of the first amendment. If you want to speak about what he has done, or (far worse) gather with others that share your beliefs to speak extra loud… straight to jail.

    Imgonnatrythis ,

    I could of sworn I read that shit doesn’t actually stink, but the pile of emperic evidence has led me to believe otherwise.

    TORFdot0 ,

    Their obsession with “freeze peach” has always been a facade to their true desire which is to censor opposing viewpoints and make their viewpoints the only form of acceptable speech.

    You’ll note that everything outside those bounds is “woke” and unacceptable

    Delusional ,

    Nope he’s just a fascist hiding behind free speech.

    MonkderDritte ,

    TIL advertisement market is worth 1000 billion $.

    Assuming 2 billion people owning an internet capable device, that’s 500 $ per person.

    Kraiden ,

    It's estimated to be around 66% of the global population, or 5.35b people... so $186.92 per person

    MonkderDritte ,

    Guess my number was old. :(

    MagicShel ,

    We’re worth less now because they’ve already taken a bunch of our money.

    intensely_human ,

    Yes yes. We see that online people has gone from 2B -> 5.3B. Oopsie daisy my numbers must be out of date.

    Meanwhile “what has capitalism ever done for humanity??”

    fluxion ,

    Can X sue Musk for telling advertisers to go fuck themselves rather than addressing their concerns over his dumpster fire decisions?

    just_another_person ,

    He privatized and fired the board, remember? Nobody else inside to hold him accountable for being a non-stop fuckup.

    cranakis ,

    There are the shareholders…

    just_another_person ,

    Institutional only now, and they’re all big companies who Musk strung along for the ride. He’s already on the hook with them, and they are obviously not pleased. He still the majority shareholder, and it’s lost 75% of its value since he took it over, and it’s clearly going to just bleed to death. They’ve already lost their investments.

    grue ,

    You say “institutional investors” as if it’s their money they’re losing. It isn’t. It’s everybody’s 401(k)s and IRAs, held through mutual funds that disenfranchise them from being able to vote their shares and put that power in the hands of the “institutions” (read: fund managers) instead.

    Point is, not only is Musk still fucking over real-people shareholders, they’re the second-class ones who can’t even do anything about it!

    just_another_person ,

    No.

    Took me all of 2 seconds: here

    grue ,

    …Are you stupid? Do you know what things like Blackrock and Vanguard are, and what they do? The entire point of those companies is that they hold and invest other people’s money.

    just_another_person ,

    Yes, they have more money than small nations. They are using their CAPITAL to invest. It’s literally a legal requirement to do so in all developed markets, and these are global companies doing so. They are spending your retirement doing it. They’re spending thebinsane amount of money you give them as a fee to do it. They’d be in court today if they were doing what you’re suggesting. In the US, anything designated as a retirement fund is only held my institutions (banks) that designate themselves as such, and SEC regulations prevent them from using any NON-CAPITAL cash from investing in this way.

    grue ,

    They’d be in court today if they were doing what you’re suggesting. In the US, anything designated as a retirement fund is only held my institutions (banks) that designate themselves as such, and SEC regulations prevent them from using any NON-CAPITAL cash from investing in this way.

    You don’t have a goddamned clue what you’re talking about. We’re not talking about banks illegally investing people’s savings accounts; we’re talking about non-banks investing people’s retirement accounts that they’ve specifically been advised are not FDIC insured and can lose money. You’re confusing two very different things.

    The bottom line is that it very much IS REGULAR PEOPLE’S MONEY that they’re using, NOT THEIR OWN MONEY! The fund managers themselves have no skin in the game. The owners of Blackrock itself (holders of individual shares in Blackrock, not Blackrock-administered mutual funds) have no skin in the game. The owners of Vanguard only have skin in the game because it’s got a weird corporate structure where it’s owned by its funds, but even then the money that Vanguard is investing didn’t come from Vanguard’s revenue; it’s all money that they’re handling on behalf of clients (i.e. regular people) who own shares in Vangaurd-administered mutual funds. It’s those clients who gain or lose money depending on the funds’ performance, not Vanguard or Blackrock – the fund companies just get revenue by charging fees (i.e. the expense ratio, etc.).

    just_another_person ,

    Sorry to say after you wrote all that, but you’re describing malfeasance from a FUND HOLDER. Last I checked, the companies you describe are fund targets, not holders. You should get in touch with the people investing your money then, because none of these X shareholders are administrators of funds.

    grue , (edited )

    The things that you’re saying are just flat-out factually untrue. You didn’t “check” anything, or if you did you certainly didn’t understand it. Go educate yourself before you keep being confidently incorrect.

    Edit: Actually, I’ve got a better idea: how about you tell me how you think companies like Blackrock or Vanguard work? I genuinely want to understand how you came about such huge misconceptions.

    intensely_human ,

    Largest shareholders include BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Dimensional Fund Advisors Lp, State Street Corp, HAP Trading, LLC, Bluefin Capital Management, Llc, IJH - iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF, and VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund

    Notice the mutual funds in here? That person is right.

    intensely_human ,

    and it’s clearly going to just bleed to death

    When do you predict twitter will shut down, or be sold my Musk?

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